


i felt my wings clipped

by sunsetdawn20



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Community: comment_fic, F/M, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Self-Reflection, ignores later canon developments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 07:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23967571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetdawn20/pseuds/sunsetdawn20
Summary: It’s the small things that break him day after day.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Other(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2015, Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	i felt my wings clipped

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigriswolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/gifts).



> I realized I miss filling comment_fic prompts, I haven't done it in years. So to (hopefully) bring some joy to the recipients my challenge to myself is to fill one prompt each day from the same day five years ago. So starting with the prompt "Marvel movies, ex-Winter Soldier, I felt my wings clipped" from May 1 2015

** I felt my wings clipped  **

It’s the small things that break him day after day.

Not the triggers. Not the incessant nightmares. Not even the guilt, though he has that in spades. Not the constant reminders deeply ingrained in every bone of his body, every creaking sound of his joints.

Those he can take. He’s not _well_ , may never entirely be again, but he’s learned to find ways to live with all the weight he can’t put down. 

What truly break him are things like coffee.

He remembers being young and inconsequentially careless with his heart and body and soul and inviting beautiful women to quaint cafés. He remembers when coffee meant flirting and easy charm and want lighting up in dark eyes. He remembers when coffee meant sex and feeling recklessly alive, almost in defiance of a world growing darker. 

He remembers when coffee was something to savour. Like early mornings with Steve, who was always implausibly upbeat at dawn and never failed to torment him through his sleep-deprived first coffee of the day. He remembers when coffee was companionship, jokes and love. 

These days the smell is enough to turn his stomach.

He tried. Spent a comical amount of time inconspicuously tasting his way through the plethora of coffee types that have evolved in past years. At best he disliked them, at worst the taste made him mildly nauseous. It wasn’t a gradual change of tastes –like one would acquire a fondness for vegetables later in life – but like a cut. Sharp and final. Like some part of him just died one day with no trace. Or worse, like something in him got replaced with the polar opposite of what it used to be. The thought terrifies him, makes it hard to unclench his fists sometimes.

He never said anything but eventually Steve noticed the twitch in his jaw every morning and since then he makes sure to get up early and air out the kitchen properly before Bucky joins him. That’s Steve for you and Bucky can’t for the life of him tell if that makes it easier or so much harder.


End file.
